Whether to use 'whom' is subjective.
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Colonel PanicMar 11 '13 at 15:49

4

One need never use whom, and if one is even a little bit dubious about a situation, one should certainly not use whom there. That's the rule. The simple rule. If you insist on zombie rules, be aware you're late to the game, and there are lots more zombie rules out there already. Whom has kicked the bucket, shuffled off this mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible. This is an ex-pronoun. Let it lie in peace.
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John LawlerSep 1 '14 at 19:31

1

@JohnLawler There were some policemen, several of who were armed? This seems to be a situation in which whom is usually still required, eg when it's the object of a preposition.
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AraucariaOct 10 '14 at 9:38

You can construct situations where it's required, but they're never obligatory. If you Pied Pipe the preposition, then, yes, in that case, whom is required, because it's the object of a preposition. But that's the only situation and it's easily avoided: There were some policemen; several of them were armed.
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John LawlerOct 10 '14 at 15:26

3

@Araucaria - I agree with your assessment for this situation. John Lawler's workaround is a) an unnecessary contrivance, apparently born purely out of his hatred for 'whom'; and b) rather inelegant. To me, There were some policemen, of which several were armed seems stylistically better.
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Erik KowalDec 15 '14 at 2:50

Short answer: When in doubt, use who. It's disconcerting to hear whom where who is expected, but the usage of who in situations where previously whom was standard has been increasing, especially in spoken usage.

Longer answer: The traditional rule is that whom was to be used in the "objective case". What this means in practice (it's even controversial whether English has cases), is that you try to answer the question: if the answer is he, she, they, I, we, etc., you use who. If the answer is him, her, them, me, us, etc., you use whom.

Examples:

"The man who spoke yesterday…", not "the man whom spoke…" ("He spoke" is correct; "Him spoke" is not.)

"Whom did you see?", not "Who did you see?" ("I saw him", not "I saw he".) The latter is frequently common these days, though.

The Language Log posts (1, 2, 3) linked in another answer, as well as William Safire quoted on the Wikipedia page, recommend avoiding whom or recasting your sentence if it seems necessary.

Someone using whom in place of who is likely to be interpreted as a hypercorrection from linguistic insecurity (and Geoff Pullum at the Language Log agrees), while using who in place of whom is, at worst, being too colloquial (and at best, being hip and cool!). Summary: it's good to know which is which and use them correctly, but when in doubt, use who.

+1. Great answer, and much more useful than the currently top-voted, accepted one. Just stating the traditional grammar rule is far less interesting than explaining how the language is nowadays used and what is considered correct and "natural".
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JonikAug 9 '10 at 12:46

@Mechanicalsnail, is that just based on what "sounds natural" or is that an actual grammar rule? Because this is what brought me to this question. "I work with people, many of who(m) use this." "Who" seems to be the correct usage here according to the rules described in these answers, but you are correct that "whom" sounds more natural. But sounding natural and being correct aren't always the same.
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Jeff LockhartMay 9 '13 at 19:56

Shouldn't the 3rd example be "whom"? The sentence can be divided into "Bob is." and "We were thinking about Bob before." In the combined compound sentence version, "whom" is "Bob" as the object of the second sentence.
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Jeff LockhartMay 9 '13 at 20:12

@JeffLockhart: I don't think so. As I understand it, "who" is another name for "Bob" because "is" is a linking verb renaming "Bob" with "who".
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UllallullooMay 9 '13 at 20:31

1

So what's the object of the sentence "We were thinking about ____ before"?
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Jeff LockhartMay 9 '13 at 20:45